


hello, i’m good for nothing. will you love me just the same?

by thermodynamicActivity (chlorinetrifluoride)



Series: and will she remember me fifty years later? i wished i could save her in some sort of time machine [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Ancestor-Era (Homestuck), F/M, Mental Instability, Suicidal Thoughts, Young Ancestors (Homestuck)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-05 01:39:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12180405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chlorinetrifluoride/pseuds/thermodynamicActivity
Summary: Your name is Mituna Captor, runaway helmsman, currently in self-imposed exile, and watching some stupid wiggler preaching hemoequality to anyone who will listen. You’ve also been trying to ignore your flushcrush on his jadeblooded companion for the last sweep in a half.However, sometimes, shit just… happens. You’re not too upset about the results all things considered. You’re contemptible, and she’s stunningly beautiful, but she seems fond of you even so.





	hello, i’m good for nothing. will you love me just the same?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dogslug](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dogslug/gifts).



> i finally wrote homestuck fic that wasn't humanstuck.  
> it's been more than a year since i've done that.  
> happy late birthday, dank steve.

_“And now, our bodies are the guilty ones._  
Our touch will color the hours…”  
\- Spring Awakening

Rarely does Porrim bathe unless Kankri is within earshot, in case something bad has happened to him, but tonight he’s maybe… a kilometer away, digging for edible roots.

The new member of the crazy train, a deaf girl with wild hair, is attempting to show him the difference between the poisonous ones and the ones that go well in soup. One time, before Meulin joined you guys, he mixed them up and brought back hemlock. You put it in your sylladex, presumably so nobody could try to eat it. So yeah, that idiot needs a chaperone.

Although Meulin would die before letting anything happen to her matesprit, Porrim looks worried. Probably because of that. She doesn’t want to lose two wigglers at the same time.

Although Porrim’s completely naked, and the troll you were two sweeps ago would faint at the revelation, you wrap an arm around her waist and trill gently. She gives you a shadow of a smile. She’s beautiful when she smiles. She’s beautiful in general. You feel like you could stare at her, her and her luminescent glow, for the rest of your life, and not grow tired.

“You really need to stop worrying about him,” you tell her, once you have your wits about you. “He’s not a grub anymore. He’s nine, Porrim. They used to conscript psionic trolls as helmsmen at nine. He’s pretty much an adult.”

“I don’t want him to get culled by accident,” she says, sitting in the rather shallow water. “Is that so much to ask? I can take down drones, and a few highbloods. Meulin… well, she could probably do the same. But still. I worry.”

You hope that if it really comes to blows with drones and highbloods, that your side will win. You doubt it.

You remember the last words your kismesis said to you, before you left the psionic compound to jump on the crazy train. You asked them what would happen.

“It won’t end well,” Pinyix said to you. “Nevertheless, they need you. They need you and your abilities.” They decided to be level with you. “So, you have a choice, Mituna.”

“A choice?” you asked.

“You could stay here, and probably get conscripted when your fifteen sweeps exams come about, when you won't be able to hold back your power to fudge your test results, or you could go with this group of would-be revolutionaries.”

“Will I still get conscripted if I leave?”

Pinyix blinked, wiped the tears from their eyes, and sighed.

“You can’t escape your fate, even if you do leave with them,” they inform you. “But, in the interim, you’ll have a chance to be part of something greater than you could possibly imagine.”

Ultimately, you agreed.

You’ve never been great before. You’ve never even been particularly useful. You’re a manic-depressive trainwreck with occasionally erratic psionics and a knack for stealing things from midbloods. You’re pretty awful, when you get right down to it.

But if Pinyix says you can be useful, even though your life will end in calamity, they’re probably right. After all, they can “see forward”, as Alhena, another troll who could “see forward” said, before he got conscripted as a helmsman to the Battleship Condescension.

You sigh, much later, somewhat despondent.

You only ever remember him in snapshots. A seven sweeps old who played chess with you. Who played Fiduspawn with Arcsin, Arccos, and Arctan. His massive flushcrush on Alzirr before she got executed. The way he’d let anyone who wanted to cheat off him during school feeding exams, and managed to never get caught. Him and his stupid flashlight when he was checking the hallways of Sigma Block for trolls out of their recuperacoons after hours.

However, try as you might, you no longer remember what his voice sounds like. You’ve forgotten what most of the trolls in Sigma Block sound like. And it’s only been two sweeps since you ran away from the psionic compound.

You think of the hemlock in your sylladex. You wish you had a way to teleport it to the Battleship Condescension and give it to Alhena. He deserves it, assuming he’s still breathing.

“I hope you’re already dead,” you think to him, trying not to cry. “I hope you’ve been given that mercy.”

You sigh.

Fast forward to Porrim bathing in the stream, twelve hours after she kissed you in the woods. Not a pale peck on the lips, but a gesture red as Kankri’s blood.

Now, she’s stripped herself of her auxiliatrix garments - also in the stream - which she’s weighed down with rocks to keep them from floating away. They need washing, she says.

Then she lies back so she can rinse the excess dirt out of her hair before she washes it in earnest.

“Tuna?” she calls, sitting up again, so she can soap her hair. You look up abruptly. And then your ears flush.

You may be seventeen, but you’re incapable of not acting like a five sweeps old with a crush on their schoolfeeding instructor, whenever you’re around her. Especially when she stands up butt ass naked, although you’ve seen that particular sight at least fifty times.

You try to keep your eyes affixed on her face, but you find your gaze roving all over her body. The sinuous, almost serpentine black tattoos that wind their way around her arms and legs.

“Admiring my ink, I see,” Porrim says with a grin.

“Yeah, your ink and more besides.”

Instead of rolling her eyes, Porrim tells you to get in the stream with her, a smile still on her face.

The way she looks at you, her eyes all half-lidded, and her voice somewhat husky, probably from yelling at Kankri and Meulin for an hour straight, sends “holy shit” signals straight to your bulge.

Nevertheless, because you are such a dumbass that you’re about to bulge block yourself, you walk to the water’s edge, and ask, “now why would I do that?”

“You smell like hoofbeast excrement,” she says. “When was the last time you washed?”

“Uh…”

Wrong answer. (Right answer?)

She yanks you into the stream, bodysuit and all. However, even though she’s strong, she overbalances, and nearly falls over. You pull her down by her ankle, and now it’s your turn to laugh.

After smacking you, she gets up on all fours, hovering over you, apologizing profusely, and then examining you for injuries.

She’s practically straddling you. She leans forward, even closer, so you can feel her cool breath against your face. And for the first time, she looks confused. Maybe nervous.

Your bulge is straining against the fabric of your garments. You raise yourself up slightly, and kiss her. She deepens the kiss, and with expert fingers, unzips your suit, pulling it down halfway. She dances a hand down your chest, down your abdomen, and then even lower, until she’s circling the entrance of your nook with one index finger, careful to mind her claws as she pushes it in. Eyes widening, you let out a moan.

(Where the fuck did she learn that? Hasn’t she been on the run for ten sweeps?)

“For fuck’s sake, don’t leave me hanging,” you tell her.

Then, she pulls away, looking disquieted.

“I can’t do this, Mituna,” she says.

You roll your eyes.

“Oh, sure, leave me with the bluest globes on Alternia.”

“It’s drone season,” she points out.

“Yeah, and?”

“We are biologically wired to want to pail during drone season,” she says, and her face is flushed green. She bites down on her lip so hard that she draws blood, a little verdant line running down her chin. “And I prefer it when my partners give informed consent, consent that is not based on some biological imperative.”

_(Ancestors and Mother Grubs, you understand where the fuck Kankri got his longwindedness from. Only Kankri’s mother would lecture you when you’re about to get laid.)_

And seriously, for the love of the Ancestors, this is such bullshit.

(You’ve a half-mind to tell her about how you and your friends in Sigma Block literally arranged matespritships and kismesissitudes amongst each other so that the elder instructors wouldn’t do it, and so none of you would end up getting culled during drone season for not contributing enough pails or slurry, or for contributing with the wrong partner. Not everyone was happy with the arrangements, but since your choices were pail or die, most trolls chose to pail, even if they weren’t particularly enthusiastic about their partners.

You lucked out in the sense that you already had a kismesis and a matesprit, so you were exempt from that particular torture.)

Instead of gracing her with that tale and having her flip pale on you again or some shit, you decide not to tell that story. However, you do have a smartass comment for her.

“I have been informed that you want to pail me, and I consent to you pailing me. Good enough as informed consent?” At the annoyed expression on her face, you add, “If it’s any consolation, I pretty much want to pail everyone, drone season or not. If I ever see my friends from Sigma again, they can tell you.”

“I’m ten sweeps older than you,” Porrim points out. She checks her reflection in the stillest part of the lake. “I have grey hair coming in, Mituna. Surely, you have better taste than that.”

You actually like the threads of silver weaving their way through her dark hair. They remind you of little strings of light, although there aren’t that many. She’s only twenty-seven sweeps old.

But if she doesn’t want to get with you, you won’t push the issue. You aren’t that sort of troll.

“Whatever you want, Porrim,” you say.

Her gaze flicks back up to you.

“I know what I want, Mituna.” She takes your chin between her thumb and forefinger, and sighs. “I wish I didn’t. But unfortunately, you are the most pitiable troll I’ve ever met.”

You stare at her with your mouth open wide enough to catch flies.

“Really?”

“Really.”

The two of you attempt to wash each other in the stream, but you’re rather transfixed by all her tattoos. You gently trace the patterns with your fingertips. She inhales more sharply than is strictly necessary, and you’re scared you’ve hurt her until she makes a contented sound, low in her throat.

She turns around so that you and she are nose to nose.

“Mituna, I…” she pauses. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“I always want to do this.”

“Are you having one of your episodes? Have you been sleeping properly?” she asks.

Add your mental disorder to the list of things trying to bulge block you.

Porrim, the master of the mixed signals, is going to ruin you. One minute, she’s ready to fuck you into next sweep. The next minute, she’s concerned for your well being in an utterly conciliatory way.

“Not manic,” you insist, your bulges straining at the confines of your jumpsuit. Your rational mind decides to ping you then.

“Porrim,” you say. “Do  _you_  want to do this?”

“I think I’ve made my opinion on this arrangement clear,” she replies. “Yes, I do, as long as you want to.”

She leads you to a grotto not far off from the stream. Before she leaves, she writes a note informing Kankri that you and she are going to be gone for while, but will definitely be back at the place you’ve camped out, before the sun comes up. Fuck almighty, Meulin’s going to have a field day with that.

You pull a bucket out of your sylladex - you never know when you’re going to need one, especially given your… “history”  - and instead of it y’know, not annoying the shit out of you, it crashes to the stone floor.

Porrim covers her mouth to disguise her laugh.

Not that you two can even deliver your slurry to the drones - you’re presumed dead, and she’s been on the run for almost ten sweeps - but if you don’t have a bucket, where the fuck else can you put it?

This is not like any other sexual encounter you’ve had before, where everything was a rapidfire fuck so you could contribute as many pails as possible in a short period of time, lest the drones get pissy at you.

Porrim kisses you slowly, whispering words in the jade tongue against your ear. You never thought that language sounded particularly sexy, but it does. Go figure.

And every movement of hers is languid, determined to draw out the moment for as long as possible. She’s torturing you, and the worst part? Fuck, you’re enjoying every second of it.

When you kiss back, you mind your fangs. And hers. Two trolls with janky teeth should not be allowed to engage in sloppy makeouts. Not like you give a shit, honestly.

She presses herself flush against you, and you know she feels your bulge getting increasingly annoyed that it wasn’t invited to the party. So she unzips your jumpsuit the rest of the way, yanks it down, and kneels in front of you. She quirks an eyebrow at the bulge twofold, but exhales teasingly against it just the same.

After she lets her tongue take a swipe at your nook, she kisses her way down your thighs, minding her teeth. You wish she wouldn’t. You wouldn’t mind the sensation, no, not at all.

You gaze up at the ceiling of the cave, as one of your bulges coils around her wrist. She licks a stripe up the other one, and you stagger back against the wall in order to steady yourself. Holy actual almighty fuck.

Then… you feel nothing against you. You look down. Porrim’s still kneeling on the floor, but she’s up gazing at you curiously.

“Are you okay?” she asks, with actual concern.

“I would be way more okay if you finished what you started.”

She slaps you on the thigh for being an impertinent fuck.

“Whatever you say, Mituna.”

There’s a fifty-fifty chance that what you’re about to say next is going to make her shake her head and walk away, but you never know how to keep your mouth shut.

“Next time you smack me, do it harder,” you tell her.

Porrim rolls her eyes, but if the trickle of green slurry running down her thigh is anything to go by, she wants to finish what she’s started as much as you want her to. She raises herself to standing position, and as soon as she does, her bulge unsheathes. She exhales.

“Are you sure–?”

“Yes, I’m sure. The fuck do I gotta do, paint ‘pail me’ across my thorax? Do I have to run into your tent ass naked yelling ‘there’s a problem in my pants that only you can solve?’”

At that point, Porrim asks you if she can cover your mouth.

“For what?”

“It’s easier to pity you when you can’t talk.”

“Are you flipping pitch on me?”

“I wish I were, then I could punch you and we’d consider it foreplay.”

“I don’t care what you flip on me, as long as I get some.”

“You might regret that statement in the future,” she says, a glint in her eye.

This jadeblood is going to ruin you. Utterly. And when you die, assuming there’s an afterlife, you’ll see your dead friends from Sigma Block and inform them that you got pailed to death. Not a bad way to go, all things considered. Alhena will probably high five you.

You hook a leg around Porrim to pull her closer. And when her bulge starts to enter you, it’s cool but not cold.

Alight with glorious sensation, you rest your head against her shoulder. And as you take more of it, you feel like a virgin in one of those pail inducement videos, wondering something idiotic like “Is it going to fit?”

It’s going to fit. You’ll make it fit. You do. Even she looks mildly surprised. She plants kisses all over your face and mouth, telling you how good you’re doing, and you’re not used to this kind of praise. Mituna Captor, if you cry during this encounter, you are never letting yourself live it down.

Porrim braces one hand against the cave wall to steady herself, but doesn’t make a sound no matter what either of you do. Her bulge is doing all the talking. You do not mind in the least. You throw your head back and try to make some kind of noise of pleasure, but you seem to have lost your words. A shiver starts at your extremities, and courses through the rest of you.

She leaves small bites at your neck, but not deep enough to draw blood. Meanwhile, her bulge thrashes inside you, finally hitting your shame globes. There are not enough swear words on Alternia for this. Yeah, this is so how you die, and you don’t give one iota of a fuck.

You throw your head back and make a keening noise through your clenched teeth. Two of your trembling fingers find their way into her nook. Unlike her, you keep your nails fairly short. You don’t need them in hand-to-hand combat. That’s what your psionics are for. Once your fingers are in, you curl them, hoping you’ve found the right spot.

“Fuck!” she exclaims, her legs beginning to go wobbly.

Score one, Mituna Captor. Master of mack twofold.

“The bucket,” she murmurs. “We need the bucket.”

Does she seriously expect you to levitate the bucket over here while you’re getting screwed out of your thinkpan? You accept the challenge. Predictably, you try to bring it over, and end up slamming it against the adjacent wall.

“Close enough?” you ask her. Amazingly, she does not roll her eyes at you. With another spark of energy, you manage to get the bucket where it’s supposed to be.

When you come, you’re crying.

You’re not quite sure why at the moment.

You watch your slurry fill the bucket, and you cry even harder.

Although Porrim’s still in the smiling afterglow that follows an orgasm, once she opens her eyes, she puts a gentle hand on your shoulder, looking concerned. You scrub at your eyes with the back of your hand and decry yourself for being such a fucking panrotted sack of bulges.

Porrim takes a handkerchief out of her sylladex and hands it to you.

“Mituna?” she asks. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened, but I’m so sorry. Did I go too far?”

Eyes still downcast, you shake your head. “It’s not you. It’s not you at all. That…” You think for a few moments. “That’s the most I’ve enjoyed myself in three sweeps.”

“Well, do you want to talk about what happened?” she asks.

Yeah, standing butt fucking naked in a grotto is the perfect place to have a feelings jam. But she doesn’t seem like she’d judge you for this. Still, ultimately, you nod.

“Y’know how old I was when I decided to follow you and Kankri?” you ask.

“Fifteen sweeps?”

“Yeah. Exactly,” you say. “Before I went with you, I had a profession I vaguely enjoyed. I had a kismesis. I had a matesprit. I had a moirail. I had an auspistice. I had other trolls I loved, even if we weren’t quadranted. I had stuff I wanted to do, and this… thing, well, it wasn’t really on the list. I don’t regret the choices I’ve made, but sometimes, I miss them. I miss them so much that it hurts.”

Porrim lowers herself to a sitting position in the shallow water, and suggests that you do the same. She lets you lean your head on her shoulder before she speaks.

“That must be immeasurably difficult. I can’t say I understand the specifics of your situation…” she begins. “Nevertheless, I abdicated when I was seventeen or eighteen. Plenty of time to find trolls to fill my quadrants, to meet trolls who are dear to me. And I did. I left before I could say half my goodbyes, although I doubt it matters anymore. Still. It’s okay to be homesick.”

You nod, tears still running down your face.

“Do you ever miss them?” you ask.

“Every day,” she says. “You’re allowed to miss your friends, too. It’s okay to miss them.”

You cry until you’ve run out of tears, Porrim’s arm around you all the while.

Although you know it’ll mean the end of your clandestine exit strategy, should the excrement hit the whirling ceiling device, you look through your sylladex until you find what you’re searching for.

The hemlock you told her and Kankri you were going to throw away. You give it to her, and as soon as she sees it, her eyes widen slightly. Nevertheless, she does not lecture you for having it.

She nods, and nearly confiscates it, before deciding better. She only has a single question for you.

“Why do you keep it?”

Why would any depressive troll keep hemlock in their sylladex? What else does she think you’re going to do with it?

“A prescient troll from my block told me that I had two choices. Join forces with you and Cranky and maybe bring about some kind of revolution, fail, and get conscripted, or to outright stay in Sigma Block as an instructor and get conscripted at the age of fifteen and a half,” you explain. “But if I eat the poison, if I self-cull at some point, I’ll be too dead to lose myself to any fucking biowires. I’m not gonna take it now, but just in case…”

Porrim’s glow flickers on and off. She puts her hand on yours, and pulls you close, kissing you gently on the mouth.

“If it ever comes down to that, I’ll cull you myself,” she says. “I swear. I won’t let that happen to you. Not now. Not ever. ”

She rests her forehead against yours, trilling softly, only stopping to speak.

“I pity you so much, you know that?”

You think of Porrim on the run, how the last ten sweeps of her life have been spent dodging subjuggulators, drones, highbloods, and pretty much every single troll she came across, all with a wiggler in tow. 

Aside from the strands of gray in her hair, she still looks quite young, but you can see the exhaustion in her eyes. The flickers of doubt. The worry. The weariness that carries on even after she’s woken up from sleep.

You felt pity for your first matesprit. That cannot be denied. She will never replace him. Nevertheless.

You pity her so much that it hurts. You squeeze your eyes shut so you don’t cry. She cards a hand through your hair.

“I pity you as well,” you tell her, staring straight into that verdant, unflinching gaze. “More than you’ll ever know.”


End file.
